


Broken Silence

by Writerleft



Series: Comes Marching Home [67]
Category: Avatar: Legend of Korra
Genre: F/F, Family, Insomnia, Korrasami - Freeform, Korrasami Month 2018, Support, asami sato - Freeform, introspective, korra - Freeform, zin - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-28
Updated: 2018-12-28
Packaged: 2019-09-29 09:39:42
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,329
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17201117
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Writerleft/pseuds/Writerleft
Summary: At night, the world goes silent, and there is nowhere left to hide. The darkness allows every fear and regret to come, and will not even allow the escape of sleep.The fight is hard to win alone--but Korra's fought the fight before.





	Broken Silence

Korra and Asami’s apartment slumbered in the comfortable quiet from half past two to half past three, in that still space when even the rowdiest of night owls was tuckered out but the early birds still slumbered with every other manner of urban animal. The streets were empty, the sky was clear, and silence watched over this corner of the world, holding it in the balance between the fading echo of yesterday and the sharpening promise of the morning.

When she was young, Korra did not know this hour at all. She slept soundly, protected by bodyguards and secure in her future as the Avatar.

Then, she stepped into the world, and into worry, and she and the balance hour became acquainted. In passing, at first, worrying about Amon, about Tarrlok. About the civil war looming before her people, about the end of the world she felt powerless to stop. Even after daytime Korra overcame these foes, nighttime Korra lingered in these moments, wondering what she could have done differently, mulling her failures and dismissing her successes.

And then, the worst years. The years she lived in fear. The years when the slightest sound would’ve had Korra alert and sweating within moments, no matter how deep a sleep she’d managed. The years when all she wanted to do was sleep, to escape into foggy oblivion if only to spend time away from her self, away from her world, away from the pain and the fear that had been visited upon her.

It was years living with Asami before that moment when one day truly tipped into the next was comfortable for her. Before she could sleep through the night. Asami’s arms turned sleep from a meager escape into true peace, true rest. And her relationship with silence was mended once again.  

Then, after Mian came into their lives, late night bathroom visits were common, sneaking snacks out of the kitchen, too. Sometimes, those would get Korra out of bed--she loved those little bonding moments, secret late night nibbles, and a few giggles too. Or sometimes Mian was scared, and needed comfort--something Korra was only too familiar with. No child was free of nightmares, a child who had been so lonely and whose mothers faced danger every day least of all.

While these moments may have disturbed her slumber, the silent hour remained a place of peace. Korra made it her mission to keep it so, for Mian’s sake, and in so doing, Korra could enjoy it for what it was.

Then their family grew again. And Zin…

Mian had had nightmares. She’d been too young to remember her birth parents directly, so much the better for her. But she been impacted nonetheless, by the isolation, not to mention to string of rejections her health and parentage had cost her in the orphanage. It was some time before Mian could sleep soundly, and even longer before she could do so in her own bed.

Zin, though.

Zin knew about his birth parents. Zin knew what impact they had had on him.

All too well.

Zin, it seemed, hardly wanted to sleep at all. There was too much to see in the dark.

The silence was broken by Zin’s gengle footfalls, and ‘broken’ truly was the word. Korra lay there, cuddled up against Asami, listening to the noises of the apartment. The gentle brush of circulated air. The deep rhythm of Asami’s breathing. The distant ticking of the clock on the nightstand. All the normal sounds, the quiet background of their home, but no quiet footsteps returning to their room.

Twenty minutes must’ve passed, and Korra could not return to sleep, knowing how much it eluded him.

Korra wriggled away from Asami, careful not to wake her. She slid out from under the warm covers, slunk out the door, and padded out to see how Zin was doing.

Their son was standing on the balcony, a blanket wrapped around himself. Looking out over the city, so far from where he’d been born.

Korra joined him. He didn’t react, didn’t turn toward her, didn’t seem surprised. He was already taller than her, but she looked at his face and could only see how _young_ he was.

She put a hand on his shoulder. It had taken them months to build up that level of comfort, but now, he leaned into her.

He didn’t have to explain why he could not sleep. Korra lived with enough regrets and enough power to understand.

She knew that, once thoughts like those intruded into your mind, the only way to sleep was to release them. That, or get terrifically drunk, but she was not about to encourage that in her son.

Neither did she offer comfort--she had tried that before, and knew Zin did not appreciate it. What words could you say to a child who had seen what he’d seen and done what he’d done, and felt he’d not received the punishment he deserved? How could you convince a young man of his value, when he’d been raised for years to think of himself as a weapon?

By standing with him.

In the dark, in the night, when the whole world slept. So he would know he wasn’t alone with his thoughts, his fears, his regrets.

Zin’s silence was broken, and Korra knew that feeling all too well. And you couldn’t mend a broken silence with words.

Silence had been a terrifying place for a long, long time, but in time, in coming to know herself, to love herself, the stillness bore no threat. A large part of loving herself came from knowing how much other people loved her, too.

And so, she stayed with her son, and loved him, until the silence lost its teeth.

Asami Sato, too, knew silence. Stillness. The emptiness of a home without a mother, a father. The emptiness of a bed without a girlfriend, fiance, wife. Normally, it took a lot to rouse Asami from her sleep--the cost of a bargain struck to save Korra’s life. But Korra’s absence when she should be present was one of the few things that could rouse her. She had given her soul to preserve Korra’s life--to not feel her touch or hear her breath was a tiny sliver of the fear that had driven her.

She reached over to Korra’s side of the bed, and felt it cold. No light shone from their bathroom, no telltale signs of motion to. Just an eerie silence, broken, deafening once heard.

Asami wrapped blankets around herself, trudging from their bedroom into the too-cold hallway. Mian’s door was closed, and all there was as it should be. Sozin’s door was open, and the silence there, too great.

She pulled the blankets tight around herself, the frigid air from the living room whispering with a light breeze. There shouldn’t be a breeze, it should be still, quiet, just the steady tick of a clock…

The balcony door was slid open a crack, and at first, Asami was confused--there didn’t appear to be anybody out there, but anybody foolish enough to break in through it would’ve closed it after…

Looking closer, she saw that somebody _was_ out there--slumped against the door itself. A slight moment of panic clutched her heart, thundering in her ears louder than any sound from the daytime--but she looked, and found Korra and Zin, snuggled together, dozing quietly.

Asami let out a breath, piecing everything together. For her, it was freezing, but for a Southerner and a firebender, it was merely chilly. Still, she unfurled the blanket from her shoulders, draping it over them with a smile before scampering back to her bedroom, yanking out another blanket, then leaping back into bed.

Silence, perhaps, wasn’t as broken it seemed.

Or, perhaps it was. But, as luck would have it, in this corner of the world, there were two women there who were very good at mending.


End file.
